#abstraction

Contrary to current cynicism about past golden ages, the abstraction known as 'the intelligent layperson' does exist - in the form of millions of folks with a passionate commitment to continuous learning. ↗

— Stephen Jay Gould

#abstraction #ages #commitment #continuous #contrary

Those who tell you that the territorial question is an abstraction, that you can never colonize another territory without the African slavetrade, are both deaf and blind to the history of the last sixty years. ↗

— Robert Toombs

#african #another #blind #both #deaf

Abstraction is everybody's zero but nobody's nought. ↗

— Robert Smithson

#everybody #nobody #nought #zero

Colour is a power which directly influences the soul. ↗

— Wassily Kandinsky

#art #paintings #science #art

It is so wearisome having to represent things. That is why I refuse to look at abstract art. It is much too suggestive of the style of my thoughts, and I never think about my thoughts. ↗

— Bauvard

#funny #humor #representation #thoughts #art

Remember that every science is based upon an abstraction. An abstraction is taking a point of view or looking at things under a certain aspect or from a particular angle. All sciences are differentiated by their abstraction. ↗

— Fulton J. Sheen

#science #life

abstraction, n. Love is one kind of abstraction. And then there are those nights when I sleep alone, when I curl into a pillow that isn't you, when I hear the tiptoe sounds that aren't yours. It's not as if I can conjure you up completely. I must embrace the idea of you instead. ↗

— David Levithan

#love #lover-s-dictionary #love

The propensity to excessive simplification is indeed natural to the mind of man, since it is only by abstraction and generalisation, which necessarily imply the neglect of a multitude of particulars, that he can stretch his puny faculties so as to embrace a minute portion of the illimitable vastness of the universe. But if the propensity is natural and even inevitable, it is nevertheless fraught with peril, since it is apt to narrow and falsify our conception of any subject under investigation. To correct it partially - for to correct it wholly would require an infinite intelligence - we must endeavour to broaden our views by taking account of a wide range of facts and possibilities; and when we have done so to the utmost of our power, we must still remember that from the very nature of things our ideas fall immeasurably short of the reality. ↗

— James George Frazer

#generalisation #knowledge #science #art

All religions are good 'in principle' - but unfortunately this abstract Good has only rarely prevented their practitioners from behaving like bastards. ↗

— Paul Karl Feyerabend

#goodness #religion #religion

Dancing is the loftiest, the most moving, the most beautiful of the arts, because it is no mere translation or abstraction from life; it is life itself. ↗

— Havelock Ellis

#arts #beautiful #because #dancing #itself